XLIII.

ON THE POWER OF SOUND.

ARGUMENT.

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony. -Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th Stanza).The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot.Origin of music, and its effect in early ages-how produced (to the middle of 10th Stanza).-The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally.-Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation. (Stanza 12th). The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universe-imaginations consonant with such a theory.-Wish expressed (in 11th Stanza) realised, in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator.-(Last Stanza) the destruction of earth and the planetary system-the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.

THY functions are ethereal,

I.

As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aërial
Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;

Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;

And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answered by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

II.

The headlong streams and fountains

Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untired powers; Cheering the wakeful tent on Syrian mountains, They lull perchance ten thousand thousand flowers. That roar, the prowling lion's Here I am,

How fearful to the desert wide!

That bleat, how tender! of the dam

Calling a straggler to her side.

Shout, cuckoo!-let the vernal soul

Go with thee to the frozen zone;

Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone bell-bird, toll!

At the still hour to Mercy dear,

Mercy from her twilight throne

Listening to nun's faint throb of holy fear,

To sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening sea, Or widow's cottage-lullaby.

Ye Voices, and ye Shadows,

And Images of voice—to hound and horn
From rocky steep and rock-bestudded meadows
Flung back, and, in the sky's blue caves, reborn-
On with your pastime! till the church-tower bells
A greeting give of measured glee;
And milder echoes from their cells
Repeat the bridal symphony.

Then, or far earlier, let us rove
Where mists are breaking up or gone,
And from aloft look down into a cove
Besprinkled with a careless quire,
Happy milk-maids, one by one
Scattering a ditty each to her desire,
A liquid concert matchless by nice Art,
A stream as if from one full heart.

IV.

Blest be the song that brightens

The blind man's gloom, exalts the veteran's mirth
Unscorned the peasant's whistling breath, that lightens

His duteous toil of furrowing the green earth.
For the tired slave, Song lifts the languid oar,

And bids it aptly fall, with chime
That beautifies the fairest shore,
And mitigates the harshest clime.

VOL. II.

Yon pilgrims see-in lagging file

They move; but soon the appointed way
A choral Ave Marie shall beguile,

And to their hope the distant shrine

Glisten with a livelier ray :

Nor friendless he, the prisoner of the mine,

Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast
Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest.

When civic renovation

Dawns on a kingdom, and for needful haste
Best eloquence avails not, Inspiration
Mounts with a tune, that travels like a blast
Piping through cave and battlemented tower;
Then starts the sluggard, pleased to meet
That voice of Freedom, in its power
Of promises, shrill, wild, and sweet!
Who, from a martial pageant, spreads

Incitements of a battle-day,

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads?

Even She whose Lydian airs inspire

Peaceful striving, gentle play

Of timid hope and innocent desire

Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move

Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.

VI.

How oft along thy mazes,

Regent of sound, have dangerous Passions trod!
O Thou, through whom the temple rings with praises,
And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God,
Betray not by the cozenage of sense

Thy votaries, wooingly resigned
To a voluptuous influence

That taints the purer, better mind;
But lead sick Fancy to a harp

That hath in noble tasks been tried;
And, if the virtuous feel a pang too sharp,
Soothe it into patience,―stay

The uplifted arm of Suicide;

And let some mood of thine in firm array

Knit every thought the impending issue needs,
Ere martyr burns, or patriot bleeds!

VII.

As Conscience, to the centre

Of being, smites with irresistible pain ;

So shall a solemn cadence, if it enter

The mouldy vaults of the dull idiot's brain,
Transmute him to a wretch from quiet hurled—
Convulsed as by a jarring din;

And then aghast, as at the world
Of reason partially let in